The representative body for UK tech companies is seeking opinions on the government’s G-Cloud procurement framework.
TechUK wants to know how much business companies have got from G-Cloud – Photo credit: Flickr, Chris Potter
TechUK has launched a survey asking for its member businesses’ opinions on how to improve G-Cloud and Digital Outcomes and Specialists, the marketplaces public sector bodies use to buy cloud-based and software development products and services.
Both G-Cloud and Digital Outcomes and Specialists are part of the Digital Marketplace, with G-Cloud now in its eighth iteration, while Digital Outcomes and Specialists is the successor to the now-closed Digital Services framework.
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The Government Digital Service is carrying out discovery programmes on both, and has hinted that there will be more significant changes made in the ninth iteration, as it is looking at improving the end-to-end journey for users.
As part of this, TechUK is running its own survey to collate its members’ experiences of using the marketplaces to feed into the GDS’ work.
G-Cloud has come in for criticism from some suppliers, who have suggested that it does not generate much business. The founder of the hosting company Memset Kate Craig-Wood, who was involved in the design of G-Cloud, recently said that her company was considering leaving the platform, noting that it had had no new business from it since 2013.
The TechUK survey addresses this query, asking how much business companies have received as a direct result of being on the platform as well as how that compared with previous years.
It also asks for opinions on how G-Cloud has affected barriers for suppliers providing services to the public sector – for instance whether buyers are sourcing cloud-based services outside of G-Cloud – and how they would improve the framework.
Finally, TechUK asks respondents whether a range of issues that the group identified with the previous iterations of the Digital Services framework have been addressed in the new Digital Outcomes and Specialists.
The deadline for responses to the survey is 9 September.
